Eating Chico (Lad)

Dear Lad,
° "Will I die if I eat it?"
° How my heart went out to you as I presented you with the torso of Chico L. Muerto, over whose left pec each of us in turn had placed the right hand--you, Coz, Piers, I (forming the Intention); Chico, so intuitively and ritely sacrificed by Coz last Sunday--I wish you could’ve seen his Skellington chasuble and Death’s Head mitre. My heart went out to you, I wanted to shelter you under my wings and dry your tears.
° "Well of course you’ll die!" I replied.
° For indeed, so you shall. As shall Piers, as shall Coz, as will I.
° Not because we ate Chico, our misstep was being born.

§

° Do you remember how I dreaded rereading Madame Bovary? I always thought it perhaps the most perfect novel ever written (only the operatic reappearance of the eyedangling, fleshrotted beggar whistling Dixie at the exact moment of Emma’s death mars the spare, unsentimentalistic Realism). But when I first read it, when I was a little younger than you, it provoked a nearpanick depression. Not that I was quite sensible of Emma’s manic-depressive disorder, and didn’t know, till recently, of Flaubert’s.
° But I felt every degree of Emma’s entrapment, The Nightmare on Elm Street-ness of her punishment.
° And yet, that wasn’t what I really dreaded.
° For Emma doesn’t just die, immediately after singing ten verses of "O terra, addio." For fifty pages she dies. In such dispassionate, scientifically observed detail--replete with discolourings, oozings, tics, temperature change, rattle--that one might as well be reading the last chapter of a Hospice Caregivers’ Manual.
° For at your age I was deeply afeared of Death Most Holy.

§

° Julja still is. Deeply afeared of Death Most Holy.
° You are.
° Piers is professionally sceptical--he thinks I didn’t read his mind as he fumbled in placing his hand on Chico’s panettone heart, "You act like you’ve never done this before," I accused him.
° And Coz is a gypsy, so Death is one of the family, Mlle Cousine Tarot.
° America is terrified of Death Most Holy. Jeb Bush and the Florida Legislature outlawed her:

Ventilationem sempiternam dona eis, Domine,
et Nox perpetua noceat eis . . . .

° And 9.11! The whole country just bepissed itself, was still dribbling on Election Day, as if those 3000 were somehow deader than we all shall be, than all others up to now have been.

§

° Although since my visit to the Shrine in Chico Mexico I have had no fear of Death Most Holy, it doesn’t mean I’m all that crazy about the dying itself. Such a lack of rehearsal, such a lack of control. Such an opportunity to mortify oneself with a Dialogues of the Carmelites sort of "Dio mio, Dio mio, perchè m’hai abbandonato?!"
° And that is why each of us should prepare a witty little exit joke, like Oscar Wilde’s about the wallpaper. Or something mystocryptic, like Rosebud.
° My tombstone, if I weren’t having myself sprinkled on the Pet Sematary out back, would read, "It doesn’t hurt, Paety." A macabre jest, stolen from Young Pliny ((Litterae, Liber III:xvi)), Sandy gets it.

§

° No, eating Chico--and he was surprisingly tasty, a triumph of the Sri Lankan Mexican Pasticceria--will not buy off Death. Death Most Holy is not a cheap floozy like some deities I could mention.
° Chico honours Death Most Holy. And perhaps, if so it please her, she will be gentle.
° Perhaps not.

§§§§§

° No matter. For not a one of you thought to wonder, not even Coz, what Intention I was forming as I held my right hand above each of yours in turn. Innocent innocent little lads as y’all are. Trusting, mighty trusting.
° Yes, of course, I explained why you received the crossed arms, why Coz received the extra leg, why I ate the notorious right leg, and why Piers got the head and brain--and no, it wasn’t just so the firstborn could have the raisins, while you two younger had to make do with--.
° Innocent innocent lads, tutti e tre.

° For what eating Chico has done, under my silent Intention hovering over each of y’all’s right hands, is to open a conduit from one to the other. Coz’s righteous and wrathful indignation--what a human rights lawyer he’d make; your Buddhalike silent teaching, unsuspected, unresented by the student; Piers’s astonishing organisational skills, his ability to plot a course and negotiate it (he’s just back from singing Vespers and Benediction at one of the most prestigious Churches in the Western hemisphere). My--uh, my--uh, my--well I’m wizard with feral She Cats, the Chapel Black is finally accepting stroking, didn’t even bite me last time.
° As you think of this and that--and right now, under the influence of the quadruple occultation, you are thinking of this and that--you have available to you, if you passively notice it, whatever you need from Coz or from Piers or--if you’re thinking of going to Las Vegas and replacing Roy--from me.
° The same for Coz.
° The same for Piers--for the stars will change, and another year he will be drawing current, not supplying only.

° Admire your brothers.
° Honour Death Most Holy.
° Sink your psychic teeth into Chico’s warm palpitating flesh . . . .

° Carnivorously, Giac.

P. S. Wish I’d read Victor Hugo’s tract against capital punishment before Hallowe’en, such a list of gruesome French misexecutions . . . the woman of Dijon whose neck the blade did not quite sever, so the executioner’s servants had to grab her legs and pull. Plunk!

Il est doux d'espérer (Julja)

Dear Julja,
° "A little patience, and we shall see the reign of witches pass over, their spells dissolve, and the people, recovering their true sight, restore their government to its true principles."--Thomas Jefferson, alla Signora Streisand Dot Com.
° "Tomorrow is another day."--Scarlett O’Hara
° "Il est doux d’espérer."--Carmen, and we know how that turned out!

° "Witches" my hind foot! Jefferson, the only truly civilised President I suppose America ever had, didn’t even believe in God, much less goddesses.
° Anyhow, my prediction of the New American Order is based solidly on Science. Or anyway on stock market patterning. (The usual disclaimer, the fact that a system worked in the past is no guarantee--well then how do all the brokerage firms keep selling such a system?)
° And here ‘tis, my disclaimed guaranteed prediction of the future. John Edwards replaces John Schneider in the bigscreen adaptation of Dukes of Hazzard. George W. Bush hands off to Jeb Bush. In 2016 Jeb Bush hands off to Jenna Bush. In 2024 Jenna hands off to one of Bush père’s grandchildren, the ones he categorised as "the little brown ones."
° Yes.
° He did.
° And on 2 novembre mmxxxii, the next youngest, having changed parties on a Truth or Dare challenge, will restore the Democratic Party to headlined power.

° You can bank on it. (Disclaimer, ecc.)

° Howcome?
° Here’s the pattern, so plain a discarded donkey can descry it.
° In 1932 FDR, in response to an economic disaster that nearly shattered the United States of America, brainbirthed the Democratic-Social(ist) Party; it was flashytoothed, bighaired Jack Kennedy who warpdrove the D-S P into technicolour; it was the homely hopeless fecklessness of St. James Carter ("We have met the enemy, and it is y’all, the American people.") that drove the Party to autodestruct. A grand Kondratieff cycle of almost 50 years of oneParty rule culminating in a Banana Republic hyperinflation that shook Wall Street to its roots . . . .
° In 1980 Ronald Reagan brainbirthed the Republican-Liberty Party, it will be Jeb Bush and his 99% R-L P Congress that will shoot the Party into 3D, and in case I’m wrong about Jenna and the grandkids, it will be the Herbert Hooverlike nattering nabobishness of an illegally cloned lovechild of Ann C------ and Robert N---- that enters the selfdestruct code in 2032. A grand cycle of 50odd years of oneParty rule culminating in the meltingdown of the Statue of Liberty--to make pennies to pay the backtaxes--on the grounds that she is a pagan French goddess . . . .

° How do I know that the Democratic-Socialist Party is dead? (("Democrat" Congressmen uniformly espousing the Republican Platform is one clue. Zell Miller is the postDaschle rule, not the exception.))
° I know it because NPR’s senior pundit, in a Weekend Edition postelection interview, predicted sheepishly that the Democratic Party will study this election, learn its lessons, emerge stronger than ever. Ms. Streisand is sheepishly hoping the same thing.
° "Il est doux d’espérer," Carmen.
° "Resistance is futile," Big Bad Borg.

° Besides, on election morn, in the bottom of my coffee cup there was a decapitated body and, nearby, a disembodied donkey’s head.
° "Witches" my hind foot!
° Res ipsa loquitur.

° Brayingly, Giac.

Dead Light in Mondo Bloggo (Coz)

Dear Coz,
° So much dead electronlight in Mondo Bloggo, so many blogs whose last post was a largefont allcaps of "VOTE KERRY". Then seven days of nothing but pure white light, like the finale of a Soviet revisionist Swan Lake. Blazing white grief.
° Not me, I’ve just been too busy casually dropping Citizen B-----’s bon mot into every conversation I’ve had. "Well the funniest thing I heard election night was on Radio Quebecois: some French wit said that the reason Americans liked Kerry was they wanted to be like him, and the reason they liked Bush was that they were like him." Never failed to drop jaws and elicit gasps, for it gored both sides and the middle about equally.
° Kerryans supposed they were being accused of social climbing, while Bushites supposed they were being accused of imbecility and redneckery.
° Evviva Cittadino Francesco!

§

" Here are two lists:

A. Presidents since FDR in the Andy Jackson mould:

Truman (a haberdasher with an explosive temper)
Eisenhower (General, but not so very)
Johnson (he lifted his beagles by their ears)
Nixon (too macho to accept rhinoplasty)
Ford (couldn’t go up a flight of stairs without a pratfall)
Carter (hopelessly holy)
Reagan (a bluecollar Hollywood star)
Clinton (born on the wrong side of the tracks)
Bush fils (Judy Garlandlike addictive personality, with a Truman temper)

B. Presidents since FDR in the George Washington mould:

Bush père (a genuine patrician, his one term a thankoffering to Ronald Reagan)

To which group would John Heinz Kerry have belonged?
° O, so that was it.

§

° How many times did you hear folks say, "Bush is the kind of guy I’d like to drink a beer with"?
° How many times did you hear folks say, "Kerry is the kind of guy I’d like to sip dry sherry and eat fish eggs with"?
° How many times do you still hear folks say, "Clinton is the kind of guy I’d like to smoke a cigar with"? Oops, off subject, perdonami.

§

° If not Kerry, then who of the possible Dems was potentially an A. List Andy Jackson?
° Well, Al Sharpton. But for some inexplicable reason . . . .
° Dismiss outofhand the one who shamelessly outed his own metrosexuality, the one who was a girly girl, the one who was a dork, the one who was a pisher, the one . . . .

° And that leaves John.
° John Edwards. John Bob Edwards. Born in a log cabin, burnt the midnight oil, took his squirrelgun and blew a $25,000,000 hole through Big Tobacco. Tough, mighty tough.
° Smooth, mighty smooth.
° John Bo (not Luke) Duke Edwards, all he had to do was buff up, put on a pair of tight faded Levis, mount a fireengine red NASCAR, and America was his’n.
° Too late now. For I have been granted a vision of the next headline proclaiming "Dems Retake Government." Date: 2/11/--but this post is overlong already. Another time.

° Your cousin, Giac.

Boyish George and John Gaunt (Lad, Coz, Julja)

While I was profiling prospective voters I was repeatedly astonished to find how many Southern folks (not to mention Ari ((Ariagoesdown blog)), miao!) support 70-80% of Kerry’s positions, 45-55% of Bush’s, yet were all eagerbeaver to vote for Bush.
How could this be?
Let us examine a typical case . . . .

There sits the Widow Lang, in her cabbagerose papered front parlour, a freezedried Cat tom, the one she never got over, on the mantelpiece next to a faded daguerreotype of her greatgreatgrandparents back home amidst the cottonfields. On the rosewood, marbletopped sidetable, a yellowing, dogeared copy of Grit, dated 9.11.
Suddenly a sound of frantic hoofbeats ruptures the hermetic stillness of the room. A dismount, footsteps on the mossybrick walk. Barely time for a peep through the lace curtains . . . .
It’s Boyish George, come a’courting, in horsesweatsoaked boots, torn and snagged jeans tight across the butt, even tighter across his--well anyhow. String tie, a Marlboro spittleglued to his lower lip. The Widow’s heart goes a’thumpity thump. And look at his betrothal present! A knittingbag made Old Testamentstyle of the sewntogether foreskins of tens of thousands of Iraqi "thems," and inside, the goggleeyed head of Osama bin--no, it’s Saddam’s head. Well what’s the difference, ‘tis the thought that counts.
Widow all a’twitter. 9.11 come knocking no more on my door.

But then, the deep, powerful, tigerlike purr of a stretch Jaguar.
Why, it’s John Gaunt, also come a’courting.
John Gaunt, so tall, and so thin, and his French tie so chicly glistening, and his Armani suit so floppy you can’t see a nip or a bun to save your soul. And what’s he brought as betrothal gift?
Why it’s a, it’s a--it can’t be, thinks Widow Lang.
But it is. It’s a nosegay of Parma violets, pansies that is to say, flown in fresh from some Left Bank hothouse.
What a quandary, no time to think. (Except Widow Lang does think of that swarthy Rafe the Naderite, whose idea of courtship was to let out the air from her SUV’s tires, for a Hallowe’en prank; and of poor wispy Little David Cobbler, who emailed her a dollaroff coupon for a Thanksgiving tofurkey.)
Boyish George or John Gaunt?
Horsesweat and manly mangore and tarandnicotine and tightassed denim on the one hand.
On the other, a dozen lavender pansies.
Yet what if the nosegay conceals a threecarat diamond solitaire?
Yet what if it doesn’t?
What’s a gal to do?--Giac